Changes in students’ self-efficacy when learning a new topic in mathematics: a micro-longitudinal study

Abstract

Self-efficacy in mathematics is related to engagement, persistence, and academic performance. Prior research focused mostly on examining changes to students’ self-efficacy across large time intervals (months or years), and paid less attention to changes at the level of lesson sequences. Knowledge of how self-efficacy changes during a sequence of lessons is important as it can help teachers better support students’ self-efficacy in their everyday work. In this paper, we expanded previous studies by investigating changes in students’ self-efficacy across a sequence of 3–4 lessons when students were learning a new topic in mathematics (nStudents = 170, nTime-points = 596). Nine classes of Norwegian grade 6 (n = 77) and grade 10 students (n = 93) reported their self-efficacy for easy, medium difficulty, and hard tasks. Using multilevel models for change, we found (a) change of students’ self-efficacy across lesson sequences, (b) differences in the starting point and change of students’ self-efficacy according to perceived task difficulty and grade, (c) more individual variation of self-efficacy starting point and change in association with harder tasks, and (d) students in classes who were taught a new topic in geometry had stronger self-efficacy at the beginning of the first lesson as compared to those who were taught a new topic in algebra (grade 10), and students in classes who were taught a new topic in fractions had steeper growth across the lesson sequence as compared to those who were taught a new topic in measurement (grade 6). Implications for both research and practice on how new mathematics topics are introduced to students are discussed.

The effect of level-marked mathematics tasks on students’ self-efficacy: An experimental study

“…Hence, since selfefficacy -a person's "beliefs in one's capabilities to organise and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments" (Bandura, 1997, p. 3) -is a future-oriented construct that correlates with achievement (Pajares and Miller, 1995;Pajares, 1996), we aimed to report the results from a Norwegian study investigating the effects of level-marked mathematics tasks on students' mathematics selfefficacy. While previous research has focused on students' changes in self-efficacy over time, making it hard to say exactly why these changes took place (Street et al, 2022a), the current study investigates how self-efficacy is affected by level-marked tasks within a short time span (allowing no other factors to influence their change in self-efficacy, if present). In this way, this paper sheds new light on tiered teaching according to readiness.…”

Mathematics learning orientation: Mathematical creative thinking ability or creative disposition?

“…However, findings also indicate that the behavior of solving non-routine mathematical problems is the least pronounced among other behaviors. It can be interpreted that students tended to avoid non-routine mathematical problems requiring the formulation of solutions beyond the application of established formulas or entail answers that cannot be preemptively foreseen (Andrade et al, 2020;Doorman et al, 2007;Street et al, 2022). So, the findings indicate that participants exhibited a relatively robust imaginative disposition in mathematical learning.…”

The role of students' mathematics perception and self‐efficacy toward their mathematics achievement

“…Students' mathematics achievements are often influenced by their mathematics self‐efficacy (Simamora et al, 2019, pp. 2−3; Özcan & Kültür, 2021; Street et al, 2022). Similarly, the valid and reliable assessment and intervention of self‐efficacy (Simamora et al, 2019) and self‐efficacy or optimism can give a positive impact in many aspects including students' academic achievement which imposes implications for the success of students' mathematics achievement (Zakariya, 2022).…”